The invention concerns a spool sleeve of the type known, for example, from the EP 0.170.094 B2 (Wibmer), where wound webs are glued together.
With such sleeves, a barcode along with written text beside it is applied to the rim of the sleeve on both sides during the manufacture of the sleeve. This multi-digit barcode serves to identify the sleeve and contains the production data of the material spooled on this sleeve. It frequently happens that these optical markings are covered by a layer of dirt or are damaged during the repeated use of the sleeve so that they can no longer be read by the human eye or by a barcode scanner. In that case, the sleeve needs to be replaced by a new one even though it would be sound enough to be reused many more times.
From CH 686.156 A5, a data carrier for material identification and for the transportation of data along with the material in the textile industry was previously known. In the case of a spool sleeve for yarn as material, this machine-readable data carrier is an integrated circuit, i.e. a chip with an antenna embedded in the sleeve wall in order to avoid damage during use of the sleeve. Here, however, the sleeve does not consist of a spool made up of multiple layers of which one contains a recess for embedding the transponder, and also does not provide for imbalance compensation.
It is the objective of the invention to avoid the aforesaid disadvantage and to create a sleeve of the above-mentioned type which can be used ten times as often while still allowing the marking of the sleeve itself and thus making it possible to identify the sleeve with the help of these markings.
The invention solves this problem in a spool sleeve, specifically for spooling glass fibers; with several interconnected layers, specifically layers glued to each other, consisting specifically of webs made of fleece, plastic film, or fabric-reinforced rubber, by the provision of an inner layer that has a recess into which an appropriately shaped transponder is embedded, whose weight is approximately equal to the weight of the web piece that was cut out. The transponder (microelectronic data carrier) for identifying the sleeve by means of individual data stored in the transponder which can be read with hand-held or stationary electronic reading devices does not require an unobstructed path between the sleeve surface and the eye (in case of numbers) or the sleeve surface and the scanner (in case of barcodes). This means that it can be placed below the surface of the sleeve, especially since the signal between the transponder and the reading device is transmitted by means of radio transmission, with the transponder being powered not by a battery but by the electromagnetic field of the reading device.
As a consequence, the identifying data of the sleeve that are stored in the transponder and are transmitted to the reading device upon demand are not subject to any wear even during frequent use of the sleeve so that the strength of the sleeve material alone determines the length of its useful life.
Suitable design variants of the sleeve proposed by the invention are characterized by:
the feature that the transponder consists of a microchip and a ring coil serving as an antenna surrounding the chip, with the chip and the coil arranged on the same plane; and that this relative position of the chip and the coil is secured by an electromagnetically passive film on which at least the chip and the connecting wires to the coil are located;
a double film in form of a shallow pocket whose edges are vacuum sealed and which also encloses the coil;
the feature that the film pocket is held by means of a strip of its edge in the web recess; and
by the feature that the layer with the recess is one of the center layers, and that the recess is centered between its edges.
The invention is suitable for sleeves of the type known from EP 0.170.094 B2, where fleece, plastic film, or fabric-reinforced rubber are used as web materials.
Either read-only memory (ROM) or random access memory (RAM) may be used as the transponder memory for the individual identification of the sleeve. The latter allows changes of the identification data.
Below, the invention is explained in detail with the help of a design variant of the sleeve as proposed by the invention, shown in exemplary fashion in the drawing.